It's Father's Day. You slip away after the last soccer game. There's still time to make an evening of it at the lake.
The weekend has been cool and wet, and as you approach the lake you drive into a blustery shower.
You park at the big pine on the north end. No time to range all the way down to the Drake Banks on the other side. There have been plenty of Drakes here.
You wait for the rain to quit.
While you wait you cast a critical eye on a new Drake tie you're eager to show the fish. You think it will work just fine, if the conditions for the hatch improve.
The rain finally blows over the ridge to the east and is gone.
It's still breezy, and there are no Drakes visible, so you do what you like best: work the shoreline with a muddler.
Not a lot happening. Then, tucked up under a willow--there he is. He takes before you strip. You think he's waiting for Drakes, too.
You get to the end and turn around and head back. You see a Drake, another, maybe another. They're sparse, and the wind is sweeping them away. But you want to get back to where you saw and missed that Brown.
You go past the truck and on down the shoreline a ways. Then you begin to work your way back against the wind. Here, too, the Drakes are few and far between. But there are fish who are willing to take the muddler until more Drakes get here.
Each fish takes hard and fights strong, and each time you think it might be that Brown. But you don't find him this time.
You've caught four. You think you might stay long enough to catch two more, making six, one for each of your children. Then the wind picks up...
...and you hear a low, muffled boom of thunder to the south. More rain coming. Looks like you won't get to use your new fly this time.
You decide to head on home a little early. The four fish you caught will be for the four kids grown and gone. The early trip home will be to spend the rest of Father's Day with the two kids still there.
Not too many Father's Days left before they'll be grown and gone, too.
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